Audio Tidbits

I send this Special Valentine along to you with my appreciation for the time you spend listening and with my best wishes for you and yours. If this Valentine touches a tender spot in you, please pass it along to someone who matters to you.

If you have seven minutes to help our alien visitors, they are sending out their request. Listen to the podcast, and if you can make sense of it, email me and I will pass your info along. Our announcer person has the email address for you at the end of the episode.

If you have seven minutes to help our alien visitors, they are sending out their request. Listen to the podcast, and if you can make sense of it, email me and I will pass your info along. Our announcer person has the email address for you at the end of the episode.

May be you are totally cool with your lease on life and have zero interest in renegotiating your lease. If so, right on. You are definitely one of the lucky ones. It’s also possible that you think you own your life and are not reduced to leasing or even worse, certainly not to being just a renter. I suspect you also have the perfect answer when asked how many of you it would take to put in a lightbulb. You know don’t you? Sure you do. It would only take one of you. You could just hold the lightbulb and the world would revolve around you.

I’m sorry. I know that’s not you. I just tossed that in there to put off any of those high-and-mighty types who might have unintentionally pressed play and started listening in on our conversation. They think they are above the rest of us. You know the type. They aren’t above anyone but sure think they are. They also think they are entitled and don’t know that they are only leasing the space they have among us and can have their lease canceled without notice at any time. But we know, we totally get it. So let’s talk about our leases.

What are the terms of our lease on life? Yes, there are always terms. The space each of us occupies is by contract only and it’s important for us to know the terms of our lease, terms of our contract, for if we don’t hold up our end of the contract, we will sooner or later get evicted - an unfortunate outcome indeed. Let’s give some thought to just what the terms of our contract to get to live among the rest of us actually are.

Our lease on life has both basic and premium provisions. Here is the catch. The basic provisions apply to each of us and are not negotiable. They spell out what is expected of us. Failure to comply gets us evicted from our place and usually gets us downgraded. Conversely, the premium provisions are the benefits we get from our place in the scheme of things and are usually at least somewhat negotiable but can be changed or taken away without notice or negotiation. We are held firmly to the basic provisions and have to comply. We have some choice about the premium provisions but have to cope with the reality that our lease on life comes with no guarantee whatsoever.

Even so, some premium packages are much safer than others, much closer to a guarantee. Think about it like this. Suppose my place among the rest of us is to watch movies. That is the basic provision in my lease. The premium provision specifies the movies I watch. There is a sub-provision that requires me to actually watch every movie I am given access to. It really is like life, since we also have to actually live through every day we have.

Getting back to the movies, my safest bet with life and the uncertainty that comes with my lease on life says that leasing one movie is safest, especially if I accept a really old movie that everyone else has seen and no one wants. The chance of losing access or having it taken away is near slim to none. Hopefully, I at least get a chance to pick a movie I like, but again there is no guarantee.

But I want more than one old movie to watch. – Stay alert, the fine print starts here. In my one movie space, the basic provisions of my lease only include keeping track of my one movie and making sure that it does not get rendered useless and does not get misplaced or taken away. Sure, it’s boring, tedious and definitely not fulfilling after a while. Even so, my space is reasonably safe and I can certainly handle it over the long hall. You can likely think of a few bad outcomes, but for the most part, my life is pretty safe and predictable.

But would you be okay with a one movie place in life? Me neither. One old movie is not nearly enough. I want to renegotiate my lease on life. I want an upgrade to a better life space.

Here’s the rub. An upgrade in the premium provisions has a corresponding ramp up of the basic lease provisions. Concurrently, the upgrade requires us to take on greater risk. Sticking with the movies,

May be you are totally cool with your lease on life and have zero interest in renegotiating your lease. If so, right on. You are definitely one of the lucky ones. It’s also possible that you think you own your life and are not reduced to leasing or even worse, certainly not to being just a renter. I suspect you also have the perfect answer when asked how many of you it would take to put in a lightbulb. You know don’t you? Sure you do. It would only take one of you. You could just hold the lightbulb and the world would revolve around you.

I’m sorry. I know that’s not you. I just tossed that in there to put off any of those high-and-mighty types who might have unintentionally pressed play and started listening in on our conversation. They think they are above the rest of us. You know the type. They aren’t above anyone but sure think they are. They also think they are entitled and don’t know that they are only leasing the space they have among us and can have their lease canceled without notice at any time. But we know, we totally get it. So let’s talk about our leases.

What are the terms of our lease on life? Yes, there are always terms. The space each of us occupies is by contract only and it’s important for us to know the terms of our lease, terms of our contract, for if we don’t hold up our end of the contract, we will sooner or later get evicted - an unfortunate outcome indeed. Let’s give some thought to just what the terms of our contract to get to live among the rest of us actually are.

Our lease on life has both basic and premium provisions. Here is the catch. The basic provisions apply to each of us and are not negotiable. They spell out what is expected of us. Failure to comply gets us evicted from our place and usually gets us downgraded. Conversely, the premium provisions are the benefits we get from our place in the scheme of things and are usually at least somewhat negotiable but can be changed or taken away without notice or negotiation. We are held firmly to the basic provisions and have to comply. We have some choice about the premium provisions but have to cope with the reality that our lease on life comes with no guarantee whatsoever.

Even so, some premium packages are much safer than others, much closer to a guarantee. Think about it like this. Suppose my place among the rest of us is to watch movies. That is the basic provision in my lease. The premium provision specifies the movies I watch. There is a sub-provision that requires me to actually watch every movie I am given access to. It really is like life, since we also have to actually live through every day we have.

Getting back to the movies, my safest bet with life and the uncertainty that comes with my lease on life says that leasing one movie is safest, especially if I accept a really old movie that everyone else has seen and no one wants. The chance of losing access or having it taken away is near slim to none. Hopefully, I at least get a chance to pick a movie I like, but again there is no guarantee.

But I want more than one old movie to watch. – Stay alert, the fine print starts here. In my one movie space, the basic provisions of my lease only include keeping track of my one movie and making sure that it does not get rendered useless and does not get misplaced or taken away. Sure, it’s boring, tedious and definitely not fulfilling after a while. Even so, my space is reasonably safe and I can certainly handle it over the long hall. You can likely think of a few bad outcomes, but for the most part, my life is pretty safe and predictable.

But would you be okay with a one movie place in life? Me neither. One old movie is not nearly enough. I want to renegotiate my lease on life. I want an upgrade to a better life space.

Here’s the rub. An upgrade in the premium provisions has a corresponding ramp up of the basic lease provisions. Concurrently, the upgrade requires us to take on greater risk. Sticking with the movies,

What comes to mind for you when I mention “cooperative?” Now consider what comes to mind when I mention “not cooperative.” For me, the only notion that comes to mind is “Uncooperative.

Let’s try the same exercise with ”relaxed.” For me, several emotions come to mind such as up-tight, anxious, agitated, upset, restless, and so on. Even so, I divide the emotional state into “relaxed” and “not relaxed.”

The point is that I divide emotional states into two states that I can characterize as “X” and “not X.” Try it for yourself. For example, What is the alternative to being “affectionate,” to being “supportive,” to being “trusting?” You likely come up with a few words to describe each, but those words are just ways of being more specific about “not affectionate,” “not supportive,” and “not trusting.”

If we were to stop here, the conclusion would be pretty simple. The target emotion is either present or not present. What’s more, We also divide emotions into two more groups: good and not good. Being cooperative is good and being uncooperative is bad. The same good or bad dichotomy holds for relaxed and not relaxed, affectionate and not affectionate, supportive and not supportive, trusting and not trusting. Sure, there are people and situations where good and bad get reversed, for example, where trusting is a bad idea and not trusting is the better part of good judgment. Nonetheless, good and bad are still in play.

In less personal relationships and situations, we may want to replace “affectionate” with “warm” to avoid any issue with meaning, but the present versus not present, good versus bad division still applies. What is the alternative to warm? Terms like cold and aloof come to mind. “Warm” is good and “aloof” is bad.

I’m getting closer to the point. Using this approach to understanding emotional states, we can see that we can and do think about emotional states as ranging from fully present to fully absent, from all good to all bad, and we then judge other people and ourselves accordingly. One end of the range for each of the emotional states is the ideal place for us to be and not being there is actionable. We want other people to be more cooperative, more relaxed, warmer, more supportive and more trusting. We may or may not apply the same expectation to ourselves or at least not to the same degree, but the expectation is there and doing better is always an option. But what if the construct or mental model we are using for emotional states is wrong?

Now I get to the point I want us to consider. What if emotional states are not in a range from good to bad, from Present to not present? It’s not a dichotomy. Instead, think of an emotional state as ranging from not present to present and then on to not present. Present is a single point in the middle. Emotional states range from bad and undesirable to good and desirable and then on to bad and undesirable? Good is a single point in the middle. The notion is sort of like the notion that says “There can be too much of a good thing.”

Let me suggest a few ranges that shift from undesirable to desirable and then when desirable goes too far, it be comes itself undesirable.

Nervous shifts to Relaxed but if overdone becomes Impassive.

Cold shifts to Warm but if taken too far becomes Smothering.

Cynical shifts to Trusting but if overdone becomes Gullible.

Critical shifts to Supportive but can turn into being Unquestioning.

Oppositional shifts to Cooperative which if taken too far becomes acquiescence.

As we can now see, the emotional sweet spot is in the middle between Not X and taking X too far. In each example, if the emotional sweet spot in the middle is taken too far, the outcome is undesirable, perhaps even more undesirable than not relaxed, not warm, not trusting, not supportive or not cooperative.

What happens as we go past the sweet spot, as we shift toward too much of a good thing? As counterintuitive as it may seem, we begin to emotionally separate,

What comes to mind for you when I mention “cooperative?” Now consider what comes to mind when I mention “not cooperative.” For me, the only notion that comes to mind is “Uncooperative.

Let’s try the same exercise with ”relaxed.” For me, several emotions come to mind such as up-tight, anxious, agitated, upset, restless, and so on. Even so, I divide the emotional state into “relaxed” and “not relaxed.”

The point is that I divide emotional states into two states that I can characterize as “X” and “not X.” Try it for yourself. For example, What is the alternative to being “affectionate,” to being “supportive,” to being “trusting?” You likely come up with a few words to describe each, but those words are just ways of being more specific about “not affectionate,” “not supportive,” and “not trusting.”

If we were to stop here, the conclusion would be pretty simple. The target emotion is either present or not present. What’s more, We also divide emotions into two more groups: good and not good. Being cooperative is good and being uncooperative is bad. The same good or bad dichotomy holds for relaxed and not relaxed, affectionate and not affectionate, supportive and not supportive, trusting and not trusting. Sure, there are people and situations where good and bad get reversed, for example, where trusting is a bad idea and not trusting is the better part of good judgment. Nonetheless, good and bad are still in play.

In less personal relationships and situations, we may want to replace “affectionate” with “warm” to avoid any issue with meaning, but the present versus not present, good versus bad division still applies. What is the alternative to warm? Terms like cold and aloof come to mind. “Warm” is good and “aloof” is bad.

I’m getting closer to the point. Using this approach to understanding emotional states, we can see that we can and do think about emotional states as ranging from fully present to fully absent, from all good to all bad, and we then judge other people and ourselves accordingly. One end of the range for each of the emotional states is the ideal place for us to be and not being there is actionable. We want other people to be more cooperative, more relaxed, warmer, more supportive and more trusting. We may or may not apply the same expectation to ourselves or at least not to the same degree, but the expectation is there and doing better is always an option. But what if the construct or mental model we are using for emotional states is wrong?

Now I get to the point I want us to consider. What if emotional states are not in a range from good to bad, from Present to not present? It’s not a dichotomy. Instead, think of an emotional state as ranging from not present to present and then on to not present. Present is a single point in the middle. Emotional states range from bad and undesirable to good and desirable and then on to bad and undesirable? Good is a single point in the middle. The notion is sort of like the notion that says “There can be too much of a good thing.”

Let me suggest a few ranges that shift from undesirable to desirable and then when desirable goes too far, it be comes itself undesirable.

Nervous shifts to Relaxed but if overdone becomes Impassive.

Cold shifts to Warm but if taken too far becomes Smothering.

Cynical shifts to Trusting but if overdone becomes Gullible.

Critical shifts to Supportive but can turn into being Unquestioning.

Oppositional shifts to Cooperative which if taken too far becomes acquiescence.

As we can now see, the emotional sweet spot is in the middle between Not X and taking X too far. In each example, if the emotional sweet spot in the middle is taken too far, the outcome is undesirable, perhaps even more undesirable than not relaxed, not warm, not trusting, not supportive or not cooperative.

What happens as we go past the sweet spot, as we shift toward too much of a good thing? As counterintuitive as it may seem, we begin to emotionally separate,

Do you aspire to be a super hero? If so, this is a tale for you. If not, you may want to listen anyway since sometimes we may have super powers that have escaped our attention. Your best bet is to press Play and have a listen.

Do you aspire to be a super hero? If so, this is a tale for you. If not, you may want to listen anyway since sometimes we may have super powers that have escaped our attention. Your best bet is to press Play and have a listen.

When I dropped into our local coffee shop, several of my podcasting friends were deep into a conversation that had been going on for a while. I’m not sure how they got onto the topic they were tossing around, but they seemed to have some strong ideas that I found pretty interesting. As best I can tell, the conversation is focusing on how they think upping their style game could or should work. They were so into it that I didn’t want to interrupt so I just listened in. Please press Play and join me so we can listen in together.